


Just Before Dawn

by NevillesGran



Series: Twisted Fate [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Partial Mind Control, Stepford Smiling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 21:06:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8593789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NevillesGran/pseuds/NevillesGran
Summary: [We all know Vax would make any deal with anyone to keep Vex alive and well. Or...close enough to alive and well.]Percy isn't sure he'd noticed before, that his hair has turned white.





	

Percy twitched aside the window-drape and blinked in surprise to see his own reflection. Vex’ahlia didn’t like mirrors, so there weren’t any in the palace anymore. But there he was, the bedroom’s small kerosene lamp rendering him semi-translucent against the paling darkness of Whitestone just before dawn. It was going to be cloudy again. It usually was.

He ran a hand through his hair. It was shockingly pale, mistakable for a glimpse of snow on the distant mountains, or his city’s signature stone catching the light. Or rather, pure white: the ends, still dark brown, looked shabby and muddy in comparison.

“I seem to be going grey quite early.”

He frowned. He wasn’t certain he had noticed the change before.

A familiar head came to rest on his shoulder, and pale arms snaked around his waist. “I think it looks distinguished, darling,” Vex’ahlia murmured.

Her hair was ink-black. Loose, for now, from her customary braid, it framed her face like a stage-show curtain.

Percy didn’t flinch. He had long-since gotten used to his wife’s ability to sneak up on him at all times. “I’m sorry,” he said automatically. “Did I wake you?”

She laughed softly. “Percy, I haven’t slept yet.”

“Of course.” One thing he truly appreciated about Vex’ahlia: her sleeping schedule was almost as off-kilter as his, most days. Not necessarily synchronized, but the two of them fit together in the world.

“Perhaps you’ve been working too hard,” she suggested. She leaned up to kiss him on the cheek, and again on the neck, over a bite mark she had left a couple nights ago. Chills raced across his skin from both points of contact. Her lips were cold.

“There’s so much to do.” Plaintive exhaustion crept into his voice, but that was alright: he could show it with Vex’ahlia. He didn’t have to be Lord de Rolo, responsible for his family and every person in Whitestone. Capable and confident in a duty he never in a hundred years had thought would fall on his shoulders.

Though he tended to doubt he was fooling anyone.

“Worrying about Cassandra?”

That was another thing. Percy stared out the window like he might spot a small, brown-haired figure darting through the shadows. “I can understand why she would run away—it hasn’t been easy for any of us since Mother and Father…and Julius and Vesper…” He hated that he had to list so many names. It made his chest tight. He couldn’t lose Cass as well.

Vex’ahlia hugged him tighter. “Vax will find her.”

“Yes…” Vax’ildan wasn’t as skilled a tracker as his sister, much less her bear, but he was dogged. He would bring Cassandra home...

Percy twisted away from Vex’ahlia’s grip. Cass had a full day’s head start, and she’d been missing for two days now. “I really ought to let Oliver go too, though.” His hands started fiddling with his pocket watch, itching as ever to _do_ something. “The woods are dangerous, but he knows them, and Whitney would go to watch his back. Watch both their backs, once they find her. Your brother is very good, but he doesn’t really know Cass. She might—”

Vex’ahlia captured him by the wrist. “Percy, calm down,” she ordered. “Everything is going to be fine.”

She was beautiful, his Vex’ahlia. Lady of Whitestone. It wasn’t just anxious adrenaline and planning: her cool skin on his sent his heart racing, blood pounding in his temples. Even after nearly a year he felt a flush rising in his cheeks, his hand fighting the urge to reach out—strike out, pull away, _run_ —

“And you’ll always have me, right?” She winked, those sharp, clever eyes that could look red in the right light. Now they were mostly just dark, fascinating and inviting.

Percy could feel himself relax, like bellows loosing air. His thoughts slowed and the tension flowed from his body. No one but Vex’ahlia brought him down to earth like that.

“Of course,” he murmured. “I depend upon you.”

“And I on you, darling.” She smiled, a flash of sharp teeth, and kissed him on the lips this time. Lightly, gently. He leaned down to make it easier for her.

She tugged him away from the window with its heavy drapes. “Now, busy as you are, I know you don’t need to be up before the sun is. Why don’t you come back to bed?”

Percy followed obediently. But something made him shake his head. “I don’t…”

He had been having dreams again. Nightmares. Not just nerves about Cass…. It was difficult to remember, with Vex’ahlia smiling at him, but something had been disquieting enough to wake.

“Go to the laboratory, then,” Vex’ahlia suggested. “That always relaxes you. And Vax and I need a great deal more of that clever acid.”

“Yes. Absolutely. You’re right.”

He owed her so much—the least he could do was help with her project in the Catacombs. And it was a fascinating endeavor, to dissolve Whitestone’s eponymous stone then re-solidify the resultant particulate into glass. He didn’t know what Vex’ahlia and her brother needed the glass _for_ , but she assured him that he didn’t need to, so that was all right.

Percy dressed quickly, already lost in his plans for the day's work. Of course, he could likely only seize a few scant hours in the laboratory before the business of Whitestone loomed again, but if he deputized Whitney to sign things, and maybe Ludwig, young though he was, could take a couple audiences…and Archibald could likely run the city for a week without oversight anyway. Then Percy could really get to work on the way the stone sediment still wasn’t settling to his taste. He needed to miniaturize the filter another mark, he was sure of that, but if that wasn’t enough—and it wouldn’t be—he’d need to tinker with the alchemical components of the solution itself. That would take longer; it wasn't as much his forte as the mechanical aspects. But it had to be done, of course; anything for—

Vex’ahlia caught his arm again as he slipped out the door. She was in a nightgown now, elegant dark blue, lacy and scant despite the chill in the air.

“Thank you, Percy,” she said quietly. “For everything you do for me.”

For a moment, her grip tightened so much that it hurt. Percy didn’t notice. Pale and slight and beautiful, Vex’ahlia was not the most readable of women, but she looked…sad.

That wasn’t right. It didn’t make sense, and Percy couldn’t be having with it. He loved her.

“Anything,” he vowed, and returned the first kiss to her cold cheek. “It’s my absolute pleasure, dearest. I’ll make you something lovely today.”

Vex’ahlia smoothed a hand over his snow-white hair, almost petting. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> ...I should probably reassure you that Cassandra really did run away. It's not a cover for her being sacrificed or anything. She randomly nat20'ed on a will save one day and realized her now-eldest brother had married a vampire, and snuck out of Whitestone to go get help.


End file.
